Claims about the five involved in the fatal crash in March emerged at court case of a sixth member of the group
The occupants of a car which crashed, killing three people, had been drinking and inhaling nitrous oxide, a friend told police.
Driver Rafel Jeanne, 24, and passengers Darcy Ross, 21, and Eve Smith, 21, died in the crash, while two other passengers, Sophie Russon, 20, and Shane Loughlin, 32, were injured but survived.
Continue reading...Scottish broadcaster arrested and released to appear in court at later date, say Police Scotland
The Scottish comedian and broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli has been arrested by police in Scotland and charged in connection with non-recent sexual offences.
Originally a BBC Scotland graduate trainee, Kohli, 54, has presented a number of programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, UKTV and other broadcasters, winning Royal Television Society and Bafta awards for one children’s programme.
Continue reading...Budget retailer and adviser PwC have until Monday to find new funding
The troubled budget retailer Wilko has stopped offering home deliveries for orders on its website as it holds last-ditch talks on a potential rescue deal.
The household and garden products retail chain, which has about 400 stores, warned last week that it was on the brink of collapse, with more than 12,000 jobs at risk.
Continue reading...Firm says profitability suffered due to post-pandemic inflation and Ukraine war
Nomad Foods, the owner of Birds Eye, Findus and Goodfella’s pizzas, has seen a sharp rise in sales after it increased prices by 18%, amid political scrutiny over food pricing.
The business, which supplies the UK’s major supermarkets, said sales had risen by 8.6% in the three months to the end of June. The number of items sold dropped by 9.4%, but profits rose by 6.8% to €210m.
Continue reading...Tests have been available to people aged over 60 since 2006, and will be offered to those aged 50 and above from 2025
A new study has found that 20,000 cases of bowel cancer have been prevented by England’s screening programme in a decade, as over-50s are set to be offered tests from 2025.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide. By 2040 there will be 3.2 million new cases per year and 1.6 million deaths per year, according to the World Health Organization. In the UK, nearly 43,000 patients are diagnosed with bowel cancer each year.
Continue reading...Economic experts say it will take until third quarter of 2024 for output to return to pre-pandemic peak
Rishi Sunak will fight the next election against a backdrop of an economy suffering from five years of lost growth and a widening of the gap between the prosperous and less well off parts of Britain, a leading thinktank said on Wednesday.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said it would take until the third quarter of 2024 for UK output to return to its pre-pandemic peak and that there was a 60% risk of the government going to the polls during a recession.
Continue reading...Class action legal claim on behalf of 20 million householders in England and Wales could top £800m in compensation
The public could receive hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation in the first class action against water companies which are alleged to have failed to reveal the true scale of raw sewage discharges, and abused their position as privatised monopolies.
A collective case against six water companies alleges they have failed to properly report sewage spills and pollution of rivers and seas to the Environment Agency and Ofwat, the regulator for England and Wales. The first of six parallel claims is against Severn Trent Water on behalf of its 8 million customers. Claims against Thames Water, United Utilities, Anglian Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water are being brought in the coming months.
Continue reading...Metropolitan police sending extra officers to central London street after speculation of ‘crime opportunities’
Sadiq Khan has encouraged people not to travel to Oxford Street to take part in a social media craze that he has described as “nonsense”.
The Metropolitan police has said there will be a heightened police presence in the central London area after speculation about an event on Wednesday afternoon advertised on TikTok.
Continue reading...Police seek witnesses after pair injured by object launched from pedestrian walkway above Fife road
A man and woman have been taken to hospital after a concrete slab was launched at a taxi from a pedestrian flyover in Scotland.
The incident took place on the B921 as the taxi headed towards Kinglassie in Fife at about 12.30am on Sunday. The man and woman, both 37, were taken to Glenrothes hospital for treatment.
Continue reading...All officers’ names and ranks erroneously published online for up to three hours, but private addresses thought to be safe
A “monumental” data breach has exposed the names and rank of every serving police officer in Northern Ireland.
A spreadsheet was mistakenly published online detailing the surname, initial, rank or grade, location and the departments of all current Police Service of Northern Ireland officers and civilian staff members. It is understood that the breach does not involve private addresses.
Continue reading...Proceeds from levy on interest rate income will be used to help mortgage holders and cut taxes
Italy has announced a one-off 40% windfall tax on local banks that have been accused of reaping billions in extra profit from rising interest rates.
The Italian government, which approved the surprise tax in a cabinet meeting on Monday night, said it planned to use the proceeds to support mortgage holders and cut taxes, at a time when rising rates have put extra pressure on households.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: No-fault evictions are rocketing, bills are ballooning and social housing lists are overloaded – what the statistics reveal about renting today and why urgent reform is needed
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Good morning. On average there are 20 people requesting to view each rental property that comes on the market in Britain, more than triple what it was in 2019. In some parts of the north-west, that number inches closer to 30 per property. Moving house has always been stressful, but it has become an all-consuming battle for many people as rents rise and demand outstrips supply.
A chronic housing shortage is the primary reason, however campaigners and tenants have said they cannot wait for the government to build more homes. Rough sleeping increased by 34% in London between 2021 and 2022, while the number of people consistently struggling to pay their rent has increased by 45% since last April to more than 2.5 million, according to the housing charity Shelter.
Global health | Air pollution is helping to drive a rise in antibiotic resistance that poses a significant threat to human health worldwide, a study published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal suggests. Antibiotic resistance is one of the fastest-growing threats to global health, killing an estimated 1.3 million people a year.
Asylum | People seeking refuge who were ordered to live on a giant barge have been reprieved after legal challenges claimed the vessel was unsafe and unsuitable for traumatised people. As the first tranche of 15 people were moved on to the Bibby Stockholm in Portland, Dorset, lawyers said they were intervening to halt the transfer of dozens more on to the 220-bedroom vessel.
Retail | Britain’s stores are being forced to slash their prices to drum up business after dismal summer weather and ever-higher interest rates combined to depress consumer spending in July.
South Korea | The £1m cost of relocating the 4,500-strong UK contingent at the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea will affect the work of the Scout Association for as much as five years, the organisation’s boss has said. Meanwhile South Korea is having to move the thousands remaining out of the way of a typhoon.
Lobbying | The tech firm Palantir, which grew out of a US spy organisation, lobbied the UK disabilities minister to adopt new technology to crack down on benefits fraud, emails released to the Guardian have revealed. The correspondence provides the latest insight into how the firm – co-founded by Peter Thiel, the Donald Trump-supporting libertarian billionaire – is seeking to expand its influence and role within British government.
Continue reading...Marketplace sellers in UK and rest of Europe say having to wait over a week means they will struggle to pay staff and loans
Amazon has told thousands of marketplace sellers in the UK and continental Europe it will hold on to sale proceeds for more than a week in a move that small businesses say could force them to go bust.
The company has written to sellers to inform them it will no longer credit their accounts as soon as a sale is made online but will do so a week after an item has been delivered.
Continue reading...Gamblers Consumer Forum aims to derail planned betting reforms and claims to act on behalf of ordinary punters
The company behind a lobby group that wants to derail planned overhaul of UK gambling laws and claims to act on behalf of ordinary punters is co-owned by a consultant for the betting industry.
Ministers proposed a series of changes in April that they said would make gambling safer by imposing tighter regulations on online betting firms, though they added that further consultation was needed before a bill could be put before parliament.
Continue reading...US data firm wanted to brief Tom Pursglove on how its technology could help recover ‘large amounts’
The US tech firm Palantir lobbied the UK disabilities minister to adopt new technology to crack down on benefits fraud, emails released to the Guardian have revealed.
The company wrote to Tom Pursglove to brief him on technology it had recently deployed elsewhere, promising that it had the potential for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to rapidly “recover large amounts of fraud”.
Continue reading...City dwellers just as likely to be too ‘shy or lazy’ to solve puzzle for food as their country cousins, study finds
From rooting through our rubbish to stealing shoes and garden gloves, urban foxes are renowned for their intrepid behaviour. But although city life may have made them bolder than their country cousins, they are no more cunning – and most are likely to be too lazy to persevere at a problem to obtain food, research suggests.
Globally, red foxes are among the most successful carnivores, and the number living in British towns and cities has exploded in recent years. But while some researchers have suggested that urbanisation might be making foxes and other wildlife bolder and smarter, few studies have directly tested how they compare with rural foxes when confronted with the same challenges.
Continue reading...Move designed to demonstrate PM’s commitment to ‘stop the boats’ policy criticised by legal experts
Lawyers who “coach” people to lie in their asylum applications will be targeted as part of a new government-led panel tasked with pursuing more prosecutions.
The move is designed to demonstrate Rishi Sunak’s commitment to “stop the boats”, but it was criticised by legal experts who said the record asylum backlog was the fault of the Home Office.
Continue reading...British Retail Consortium and KPMG report shows steep annual drop in volume of sales and a rise in promotional offers
Britain’s hard-pressed retailers are being forced to slash their prices to drum up business after dismal summer weather and ever-higher interest rates combined to depress consumer spending in July.
The monthly health check of high street and online spending patterns from the British Retail Consortium and the consultancy KPMG reported a steep annual drop in the volume of sales and an increasing number of retailers offering promotional offers to woo consumers reluctant to part with their cash.
Continue reading...Mountain rescue teams and coastguard helicopters searched for two men and a woman on Aonach Eagach in Glen Coe
The bodies of three hillwalkers have been recovered from a mountainside in the Scottish Highlands after they failed to return from a trek, police have said.
Police Scotland said concerns were raised shortly after 9pm on Saturday when the trio did not return from their walk of the Aonach Eagach ridge in Glen Coe. Coastguard helicopter and mountain rescue teams searched the area and three bodies were found.
Continue reading...BMA highlights government’s ‘complete disregard’ for the health service and its patients
Consultants in England will strike for two additional days in September if the government continues to refuse pay talks and fails to present the profession with a credible offer, the British Medical Association has said.
The BMA said on Monday that it had written to the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to inform him that on top of strikes by consultants on 24 and 25 August, there would be additional strikes on 19 and 20 September, unless the government agrees to further negotiations.
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